14-mile Beach to Carnarvon

Its time to continue my journey and to leave 14-mile Beach again. The road back to the main road has not improved over the last 3 days, bumby, corrugated and lots of sand, but no real problem, just slow going. My fuel tank is about half full, so instead of turning right to go towards Carnarvon, I turn left to go back 27 km to Coral Bay again to fill up my tank. Coral Bay is quite nice, full of campers, many of them young people who are on the road, often for months at a time and the majority of them from Europe on a 12-months working visa.

All roads around the village are sealed except those that go into private properties like filling station, trailer park or the local Pub. There is also a small Shopping Mall (a bit of an overstatement, actually) with a visitor information (the one that gave me wrong information a few days ago) a Supermarket that sells anything a traveler may need, a Dive shop, a Bakery that sells fluffy white bread, hamburger rolls and the obligatory 1960s style sugar coated cakes. Definitely not my-cup-of-tea. There are also a shop that sells tourist gizmos, post cards and knick-knacks people buy to 'remember' a place by and a shop that sells 'New-Age' stuff with the everpresent smell of some sweet cheap incence. In other words a 'Love-Trust-and-Pixydust-Shop'. Anyway, seems to work as there are many people in most shops.

Coral Bay, great beach, view from the look-out

I drive down the main drag and track down my fuel station by the side of the road, 3 cars already waiting to get to the fuel bowsers. After filling up I drive up the road to visit the 'Shopping Mall' described above. As I pull up into the parking lot, I see a familiar face, the lady that found herself bogged down in the sand a few days ago. She looks worried, tells me her battery light on her dashboard is not turning off as it should, after starting her engine. She has called RAC for assistance and has already been waiting for hours, probably fairly normal when you are well away from the big centres. The 'assistance-guy' arrives as we speak, asks her to start up the engine and then fiddles about with the wiring harness around the alternator - the light goes off and happiness is restored once more. An interesting piece of information, Diesel Engines require virtually no power from the battery and will run happily for several hours before flattening the battery.

The drive to Carnarvon, about 210km south, is BORING and tiring, nothing but scrub in a flat country side again. I stop a couple of times to stretch my legs and rest my eyes, finally arrive at Carnarvon in the early afternoon and pull into a trailer park recommended by others on previous occasions, get a powered site and after setting up, turn on my phone. Surprise, it works as Optus has a working network at Carnarvon. Can't recommend any networks other than Telstra's if you are travelling, particularly around the North and the West.